IVR systems are well known from the telephone networks, where the caller after reaching the IVR function in the server, is requested to use phone keys to respond to IVR's requested options, e.g. to press “1” in order to be connected to network terminal of a person “A” etc. Such a solution is used in the core of the telephone network, and in addition of being costly, it is very limited in different options the final destination number holder may request from the IVR. Also, in the server based IVR systems users have limited access to the functions of the system, and the system is configured and changed by the system administrator or owner.
Terminal based IVR systems are known (U.S. Pat. No. 7,881,285, published 1 Feb. 2011; JP2002204300, published 19 Jul. 2002), where the IVR accessing functionality is located on the caller's terminal device, which may also be a mobile terminal. In known solutions the incoming call is responded by the IVR functionality in a way which is preconfigured in the terminal device. It requires manual real time input during the call, there is no pre-constructed tree, let alone one that it could be tailored differently for each caller. It is common to have different responses based on the caller's identification number (ID) in the contact list of the terminal device, based on number belonging to a predefined group or alike. Also, it is known that IVR functionality can be divided into modules and sub-modules, and these modules can be downloaded by the terminal owner based on the required functionality.
A known terminal based interactive IVR system's solution is provided by the company Mobisophy Technologies (with a software based solution of “Interactive Voice Call Master for S60”) which also allows creation and storage of some profiles with the IVR's responses to different callers based on e.g. caller groups.
A solution for enhancing processing priority, implementing interactive service and implementing customized IVR flow is known from patent application KR20100047150 (published 5 Jul. 2010), where the central system after receiving some prior information about the caller, is able to provide to a caller a customized IVR tree, and where the processing priority level can be changed.
A solution for automating IVR system interaction is known from patent application WO 2009/079252 (published 25 Jun. 2009) and US2009154666 A1 (published 18 Jun. 2009), where the caller's terminal device receives the menu tree of the IVR system from the server or remote database, and based on the visual menu tree the caller can interact with the IVR system in the server. The system also updates the menu tree on the caller's terminal device according to changes made in the IVR system's server. In the known solutions, the terminal based approach is limited by the properties of caller's terminal device and not by callee's terminal device.
A known solution is described in patent application US 2005/0216551 A1 (published 29 May 2005), which contains modular automated calling system, wherein the system itself initiates calls to other people (e.g. for making sales offers for goods and services). In addition in the system a limited pre-configured action tree is defined, where the common actions are described, depending on the callee's responses. The system plays back pre-recorded sound clips to the callee.
A known solution is described in the patent application EP0973314 (published 19 Jan. 2000), where the dynamic responding solution of the IVR-system is given, according to the solution the sequence of the responses presented to the caller is changed, e.g. based on the selections made by the same caller during predefined time period in the past or based on the selections made by all callers; the hierarchy of the options presented to the caller is adjusted in such a way, that the most frequent selections are provided to the caller earlier (e.g. during system startup the caller was provided options in the following sequence: “1”, “2”, “3” etc., then after analysing the selections made by the callers over the period of time, then later the caller is provided the options in the new sequence, e.g.: “3”, “1”, “4”, “2” etc). The described solution is focused on finding optimal sequence of options to be presented to the particular caller or all callers, and not about creating a personal action tree for each caller.
Currently known terminal based interactive IVR solutions are not able to provide the full structure of the IVR system to be created and maintained both in the terminal and in the remote configuration, storage and/or synchronization facility located in a data communication network (e.g. Internet). Moreover, in the known systems the caller has been given only trivial control over the actions requested by the IVR and the caller is not able to prioritize the transferable (for example a voice or text) message.